I downloaded the plans for this from areofred because I likes the lines of the fuselage.
The plane was designed by Jim Rice and appeared in RCModeler back in June 1983.
Apart from the obvious departure from balsa and glow to foam and electric, I also changed the styling of the wingtips and horizontal stab.
And to give it more of a 1930s flavour I added wheel pants.
Detail build log is here https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...achine-in-foam

Yesterday (actually early this morning) I finished the conversion of a used 2 meter Black Magic pattern plane to electric. Today was the big re-maiden.

I'm not sure who was more excited to see this old bird fly again: me, or the original owner, who was there to assist me with the flight and setting all the mixes to get it flying straight. It didn't take much. Just a bit of up elevator trim after take off on the first flight, then we checked CG - right on. Knife edge needed some aileron mix in same direction as rudder, and up elevator. High throttle needed some right rudder, and no throttle needed down elevator to keep it from pulling to the canopy on the down lines. By the fifth flight it was flying knife edge and vertical up and down lines straight as an arrow.

I still need to finish painting the canopy. And the biggest item overlooked in the rush to finish was adding an opening in the firewall and an exit hole in the bottom of the fuselage for airflow to cool the batteries. How I missed that, after all the past conversions and other electric planes I've put together, is beyond me. Must be getting old.

Anyway, the Black Magic is my first pattern plane. After years of flying scale aerobatic planes like the Extra, with their draggy airframes, it was amazing to experience a sleek thoroughbred again. (I got started in sailplanes, and there is nothing more clean, aerodynamically, than that.) The power to weight ratio, while similar to my 104" Extra, translates to...Continue Reading

Yes , as previously posted ! I crashed and crashed and crashed the Bee 490 over and over again till the PLA motor mount broke . Actually , thats all that broke or bent . The Bee wing is actually ok ! ..

So I stuffed up big time !

I needed to do a new mount and move the motor further forward .
At least here I can fly the Bee . Still needs more weight in the nose for CG . Damn the Bee can turn tight ! The thing I wanted , was slow flying and no falling out of the sky . Before with the larger batteries , the Bee would fall out of the sky ( Tip Stall ) . Did not do that with the smaller battery . In the video it hunts up and down ( CG ) . So a little more weight in the nose should cure that .. ( 100mm CG )

Out to the hill again today
The forecast was for 10 to 13 mph by mid afternoon but arriving at noon we found the hang glider guy's packing up and heading home...
At the top we discovered a solid 20 with gusts up to 30 ....Oh Yea !
We had the hill all to ourselves .

The wind built as the afternoon went on ,with big thermals {and sink} passing through to keep the flying interesting .
The temperature was in the high 70's
A perfect afternoon of sloping .
After 3 hours of flying we headed back down the hill to our cars and packed up , I measured the wind at my car and it was blowing 18 mph on the flat .

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Wow, I cant believe 4 years has gone by since my last entry. I have built around 2 dozen more planes since 2016. Mostly all FPV. Also built about a hald dozen DJI HD Quads. Anyway, here is my latest and greatest!
Had my Albabird out for the maiden this week and probably 4 more flights after that to get it tuned. Flies very nice now and just sips at the battery for having 2 motors. I am cruising at around 5 to 6 Amps at a speed of ~32mph. Running brother hobby 1300KV motors in it (7X4 3-blade props) and a 10,500mah custom li-ion battery. This is a keeper for sure!

Pros:
- Looks great
- Plastic nose cone for durability
- Grips for easy hand tossing
- Fantastic value price, check links in the description!
- Powerful 50mm EDF unit
- Three plastic skids on the bottom
- It handles very similarly to the E-flite Viper Jet
- Designed for 3S packs so you can get a lot of packs for hours of fun without breaking the bank.

Pros:
- Looks great
- Plastic nose cone for durability
- Grips for easy hand tossing
- Fantastic value price, check links in the description!
- Powerful 50mm EDF unit
- Three plastic skids on the bottom
- It handles very similarly to the E-flite Viper Jet
- Designed for 3S packs so you can get a lot of packs for hours of fun without breaking the bank.

Images

Maiden didn't end well...she took off in trim, and I was flying her around at about half throttle, making sure of input response....no bad habits, good roll rate....then I decided to open the throttles all the way, and WHAM, the port ESC/EDF shut down...and she cartwheeled into the runway...broke her all to pieces. I knew I was at the upper limit of the ESC's (65 amp)....Obviously, I was too close....If I'd been 3 mistakes high, I probably could have saved her. As it was I about 10 feet off the ground at close to 80 mph.....Pretty good size debris field....it was spectacular !

My first model would have been a hovercraft I made for a school project it was quite small made from lolly sticks covered in tissue, I made the fan from tin, and it had aa cells. It worked and I got top marks.
This prompted a bigger hovercraft with a spitfire diesel engine,it worked well when I could get the engine started.
I went through the model car stage with tamiya beach buggy,. My brother had one and we raced each other.
I bought a second hand racing boat with a glow engine just after I got married,. Had some fun with it but it could be hard work starting and conked out in the middle of the lake many times.
I built a hydrofoil from a kit powered by NiMH battery. It worked well.
Eventually I decided I would learn to fly so joined a model club , made some new life long friends. I built a small scale Piper cub from the sig kit it was lovely covered in nylon and painted with the sunburst scheme, even had opening doors and a pilot.
Got interested in petrol engines so I put one in a second hand T240. It had never flown so was like new. I joined the LMA (large model ass) and went to a meeting where Ian Turney-White took it up for me. He is famous for massive bi planes at the shows. I did the landing and bust the prop, but was pleased I got down in one piece.
I joined a lovely club ,very friendly we flew at a field near Thorner in North Leeds, but moved to acaster malbis near York on some old runways, great place.
Joined North Leeds...Continue Reading